To Benjamin Franklin from Bailly, 7 December 1784
From Bailly
AL: American Philosophical Society
Paris ce 7 xbre6 1784.
M. Bailly présente ses respects à Monsieur Franklin. Il a l’honneur de lui envoyer le regître auquel les Commissaires ont apposé leur derniere Signature. Monsieur Franklin voudra bien y joindre la sienne. Il peut relire depuis la page 87 où est sa derniere Signature; mais à l’exception des deux ou trois derniers articles, M. Franklin a deja pris lecture du tout.7
M. Majault au nom de la faculté de Médecine offre à Monsieur Franklin les trois exemplaires ci joints du décret qu’elle a porté relativement au rapport.8 M. Majault y a joint un petit ouvrage de sa composition9 et dont il fait hommage à Monsieur Franklin et que M. Bailly S’est chargé de lui faire passer.
mr Francklin est prié de renvoier ce registre s’il a besoin de le garder avant le dimanche 12 xbre.
Notation: M. Bailly. 7 Decr 1784—
6. “7 xbre” is a revised date, written above one that is heavily crossed out. (The original may have been “19 Nov.”) The dateline itself was placed in the bottom left corner of the sheet, and the postscript, which appears to have been added when the date was changed, was squeezed into the space next to it.
7. Bailly had last sent the registre on Sept. 8, above.
8. At an Aug. 24 meeting of the Faculté de médecine, the four physicians who had served on the Académie/Faculté commission to investigate animal magnetism—Majault, Sallin, d’Arcet, and Guillotin—presented the commission’s findings. The Faculty then signed a decree that praised the commission’s work, recognizing by name the co-commissioners from the Académie des sciences (including BF), and unanimously endorsed the commissioners’ report, which had confirmed their long-held view that the concept of animal magnetism was “aussi fausse que ridicule.” The Faculty had this decree printed in Latin and French. The three imprints that Majault gave Bailly to forward are probably the ones that BF eventually had bound with the commission’s report and other related pamphlets (Hist. Soc. of Pa.): one is in Latin (Extractum e Commentariis saluberrimae Facultatis Parisiensis [Paris], 1784), and two are in French (Extrait des registres de la Faculté de médecine de Paris [Paris,] 1784). The title page of one of the latter, on which BF wrote a plaisanterie, is illustrated facing this page. The French text was reprinted in the Jour. de Paris on Sept. 5, 1784.
9. This was probably Réflexions sur quelques préparations chymiques, appliquées à l’usage de la médecine; lues à la séancepublique de la Faculté de médecine de Paris, le 5Novembre 1778 … (Paris, 1779). BF’s copy is at the APS.